Epistemic access for university students from disadvantaged (mainly - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Epistemic access for university students from disadvantaged (mainly rural) backgrounds: South Africa’s Miratho Project

Ann-Marie Bathmaker (Univ of Birmingham) and Monica McLean (Univ of Nottingham) December 2017/January 2018

Inclusive higher education learning outcomes for rural and township youth in South Africa: developing a multi- dimensional capabilities-based Higher Education Index

• Research team: Melanie Walker (UFS) PI; Merridy Wilson-Strydom

(UFS); Ann-Marie Bathmaker (Birmingham); Monica McLean (Nottingham) all CIs; Mikateko Hoeppener (UFS) senior researcher.

• Partnership with Thusanani Foundation (youth-led NGO)
• Consultants: Alberta SpreaWico and Enrica Chiappero-Martinetti

(University of Pavia) and Charles Shepperd (NMU)

• Funding: ESRC-DfID (ES/NO0094/1) with NRF (86540).
• Why the ‘Miratho’ project? (www.miratho.com).

Project Overview

• Four-year project (2016-2020) (ESRC-DFiD and NRF funded)
• Capabilities Approach framework: ‘Ultimately, the focus has to be on

what life we lead and what we can or cannot do, can or cannot be’ (Sen, 1999)

• Focus on access, participation and outcomes for rural and (some)

township youth – 5 universities- City (comprehensive), Country (HDI), Metropolitan (elite), Provincial (mid-ranking traditional), Rural (HDI)

• Multi-method, longitudinal study: 65 life histories (over 4 years);

statistical analysis; student engagement survey; participatory photovoice project.

• Construction of an ‘Inclusive capabilities-based HE learning outcomes

Index’ for one university’ (the capabilities for a successful university education)

A Statistical Picture

• South Africa is a highly unequal society.
• Participation of 18-24 years at 23 public universities is 18. 4% overall.

Proportion of 18-24 from different backgrounds: Coloured (14.2%), Black African (15.4%), Indian/Asian (48.9%) and white (53.1%).

• ‘Against the odds’: 37.1% of the population in rural areas (suffering multiple

deprivations) but under 15% of a given cohort of undergraduate university students come from rural backgrounds.

• Completion rates:

by Y3 by Y6 by Y10 Black African 9.3% 34.7% 41% White 29% 59% 65%

• Higher education seen both as reproducing inequalities and as disrupting

them if they can complete (graduate unemployment is 4.2 %, youth unemployment 68%).

Two central capabilities

• The capability for sufWicient and secure Winancial resources
• The capability for epistemic contribution (being a ‘knower’)

The capability for sufGicient and secure Ginancial resources

• Our data is showing that the capability for financial (material)

resources is neither sufficient nor secure.

• Too few and insecure resources persistently affects learning

capabilities, even though learning cannot be reduced only to material capabilities.

• Lotter (2011, 23): ‘To describe someone as poor is the result of

normative judgment that a specific human being has inadequate resources available to live a life that conforms to minimum standards a group of humans have implicitly agreed upon as minimally adequate for themselves’. Their situation is unacceptable (for example as an HE student)

Poverty index and categorisation

• Absolute poverty or ‘extreme poverty’ the inability to achieve and

sustain biological wholeness, i.e., health, due to lack of economic

• capacities. Decline may be gradual and thus hard to spot. In South

Africa: living on less than R441 pm (5 students)

• Intermediate poverty ‘Although people have adequate economic

capacities to […]maintain their physical health, they cannot participate in activities regarded as indicative of being human in that society….People who are intermediately poor are excluded from living lives expressing their humanity in socially deWined ways’ (Lotter 2011,

• pp. 161–162). Living on more than R991 pm (53 students)
• Emerging middle class Those students who are better off. Their

emerging middle-classness is likely to be relatively recent, and hold on middle-classness is likely to be tenuous (Burger at al). (7 students)

The capability for epistemic contribution

• Miranda Fricker (2015): People have a right to contribute on an equal basis to the shared stock of

society’s meanings, ideas, arguments.

• The capability for epistemic contribution is to have the freedom and the capacity to choose to make a

contribution as knower, enquirer and teller in society .

• Equality of access to university knowledge or ‘epistemological access’ is a condition for developing this

capabililty.

• Therefore, coming to understand speciWic bodies of knowledge at university has a special role in

expanding what people value being and doing- known as their achieved functionings (McLean et al, 2017).

• In Fricker’s view, the capability for epistemic contribution is a fundamental right which can be denied

in two ways: by way of distributive injustice when people do not have access to epistemic goods, such as education; and, discriminatory injustice whereby people’s knowledge is not taken as credible or is not understood.

• Our empirical aim is to explore epistemic access, that is, what enables or hinders students to engage

with university bodies of knowledge and therefore to gain the freedom to choose to make epistemic contributions to society .

Methodology

• First round interviews with 64 second-year students.
• Codes for initial analysis: teaching; hard work; Witting in; inWluential/

aspirational others; ontology; language; future aspirations and technology.

• 64 synopses produced, 1 for each interviewee
• First analysis: Biographical and socio-economic factors; agents

positioning themselves for epistemic access; evidence of epistemic access; struggle & failure/success; perceptions of quality of teaching

• Selection of four ‘epistemic access’ student cases for this paper. Here

we focus on one of these participants

So Sonto

• BA ordinary degree in Poli/cs at City University (a comprehensive

university – these were formed in 2002 through the merger of a technikon and a university)

• 20 years old, female
• Born in a rural area, moved to a township at the age of 8 with brother

and mother

• Lives with mother, stepfather and brother in the township. City

University is within commu/ng distance (but takes a lot of /me)

Family, Schooling, Community

• Families with almost no formal education; communities in which

no-one has been to university, many or most are unemployed and there is little chance of escaping poverty; poor quality, severely under-resourced school education, which is a legacy of apartheid.

• A conversion trilogy of family, school and community can

structure expectation encouraging the academic effort necessary for passing on variety of information necessary to apply for university and gaining access

• InWluential people from the trilogy support students to believe

they have the right to and capacity for a university education (epistemic access)

Con Conver ersion

• n t

trilog

• gy:

y: So Sonto’s fami mily

• Mother works for a feeding scheme. She has always encouraged

Sonto’s educa/on

• Stepfather calls City University a ‘fake’ university
• Biological father, who had discouraged her, is now proud.

Con Conver ersion

• n t

trilog

• gy:

y: So Sonto’s sch schoolin

• oling
• AKended a township secondary school

under-resourced: no computer or book access Class sizes of over 50

• Teachers discouraged students from going to university, and only 5 from

her class progressed to HE

• But Sonto says English teacher was intelligent and open-minded and

taught her that ‘there was no one right answer’.

• Matric grades*: English (65); maths literacy (having dropped pure maths)

(78); isiZulu (90); accoun/ng (42); economics (60); business (70); life

• rienta/on (80); commerce (?).

* Matric is the final examina/on at the end of upper secondary school, and is the examina/on that determines university entrance

Con Conver ersion

• n t

trilog

• gy:

y: So Sonto’s commu mmunity

• The township Sonto lives in is ‘rough’ and unsafe, high crime rate,

including rape, about which police do liKle.

• Community beginning to help itself:

At weekends Sonto collects dona/ons for families to have funerals and clears rubbish.

• Sonto has le] the church because she disagrees with ministers

preaching that ‘suffering is the norm’ and because they are judgemental.

Students’ Experience of Poverty at University

The capability for sufWicient and secure Winancial resources

• 73% of the 64 students that we have categorised as experiencing

‘intermediate poverty’ are unable - to have a bed to themselves; to have enough to eat everyday; to buy adequate toiletries or clothing; to buy a laptop or books; to pay their accommodation, travel, registration and fees regularly.

• Precarity: students usually have some form of loan to support

their studies, but its arrival is extremely uncertain. They might have to suspend studies at any time or vacate accommodation until they pay fees and registration charges.

• Their debts are growing.

Poverty at university: Sonto’s experience

• The Thusanani Founda/on is funding Sonto’s fees (R35,000 pa)

She has no other source of money

• She lives at home

It takes up to 4 hours to travel to and back from campus to home

• n buses, for which she can wait 3 hours. She o]en walks.
• She hasn’t got her overall mark from last year because her fees

were not paid (marks are not released by the university if you are in debt)

Students as agents positioned for epistemic access

• Narrative of self as persistent, determined, resilient, goal-driven,

aspirational to ensure success in forging better, ‘brighter’ futures and make their families and communities proud.

• Hard-working.
• Desire to broaden horizons and to engage with disciplinary knowledge.
• But also narratives of struggle and failure.
• (Perceptions of pedagogic quality: quality of explanation; access to

technology and books; knowing how to improve; relationships with tutors.)

Fo Forg rging a be=er, brighter future re: So Sonto

Educa/on means a lot, man. If it wasn’t for this, and people fought for this educa/on and they died for it, so […] it might be seen as a privilege but educa/on is a right and everyone must be exposed to this educa/on. Everyone must be, you know, given, and must be encouraged to be educated, because I was looking at the structure now and this area we’re living in, educa/on is everything, without educa/on you’re not going to go anywhere.

Stude Students ts as as ag agents: ts: So Sonto

Narra$ve of self as determined, resilient, goal-driven, aspira$onal to ensure success in forging be8er, ‘brighter’ futures When she arrived at City, Sonto was ‘overwhelmed’ with happiness, and con/nues to feel extremely fortunate: ‘I’m very, very lucky to be in this situa/on right now, because not many

• f us could make it’.

She says she belongs at City because she has as much ‘right’ to be at university as anyone - looks and possessions don’t maKer, everyone is pursuing ‘academic excellence’.

Evidence of Epistemi mic Access: Desire to en engag age wit e with kn knowled wledge - e - So Sonto

I think it’s important that they not only teach students how to cram but also teach students how to think, how to come up with your own ideas, tell you what your view is about this, not just, what, according to who, who, who, who, who.

Evidence of Epistemi mic Access: Discipline- specifi fic engageme ment - So Sonto

Less evidence of this in first round interviews, but there are some examples such as here: I love sociology because […] sociology is the study of individuals and how they interact with the society or the communi/es and vice versa, and personally I think that our society or community has a large impact

• n who we turn out to be at the end because had I grown up in XX I'd

be different from who I am right now compared to, you know, the person that I am, so, yes, I think... So I love sociology very much, it has exposed me to lot of things, I’m star/ng to ques/on why is what like this, why do you have certain things and, yes, I love sociology.

Strug Struggle gles s and and suc success/ ss/failur ailures s with with studying: tudying: So Sonto

Ø 6 ½ hours contact /me Ø A lot of self-study: between classes and from 22.00 to 1.00 in the morning at home Ø Difficult to understand white lecturers’ accents Ø Goes for ‘consulta/ons’ (lecturers’ office hours), but lecturers are o]en not there despite ‘office hours’. She has no rela/onship with them. Ø struggles with typing 10-page assignments because she doesn’t have a computer Ø gets no feedback on work, so she doesn’t know how to improve. Ø Nevertheless, never gets marks below 70% in class tests and for individual module exams.

Con Concl cluding ob

• bser

ervaHon

• ns

The threads in Sonto’s narra/ve are repeated across the par/cipants in the project: Ø Students such as Sonto do not have the capability of ‘sufficiency of economic resources’, and run the risks of drop out and debt accumula/on. Ø Nevertheless, as in the case study outlined here, they are highly dedicated to gaining epistemic access which is strongly related to their imaginings about a beKer life for themselves and others. Ø Hard work and resilience are necessary but not sufficient. Ø Pedagogical framings/arrangements can guide the direc/on of effort and open up epistemic access. Ø As conversion factors, the arrangements for curriculum and pedagogy do not sufficiently or o]en enough mobilise and harness the students’ will, passion and hard work in ways which secure epistemic access and the capability for epistemic contribu/on. Ø This is not distribu/ve jus/ce. It is distribu/ve injus&ce.

Ann-Marie Bathmaker: a.m.bathmaker@bham.ac.uk Monica McLean: Monica.McLean@notngham.ac.uk

Further examples from our 4 case studies

Conversion trilogy: fami mily

DUMASANI (City University BA Language Prac/ce) Since his father had a stroke and could no longer work, income in the house is very thin. His older brothers help where they can but they too have families to support. Nevertheless, his father has always been determined to support his educa/on: “I can wear shoes, my father stayed almost five years without having proper shoes as a li?le boy. If I said, I don’t have a school shirt, even though he was earning li?le, he would make sure that I get a school shirt, he makes sure that I am like each and every other kid in school.”

Con Conver ersion

• n t

trilog

• gy:

y: s sch chool

• oling

DUMISANI: The secondary school was poor before he started there: “there were a lot of other people and they were doing like, all that stuff like vandalising the school, being disrespecvul and everything. So, the school was known for its misbehaving and everything.” The new headteacher turned it around: “The teacher was interac/ve between them and our parents and everything in order to make the school right, he involved the police, just to keep out those things because people used to carry weapons to school.” OLWETHU (BSc Biological Sciences): Class sizes at high school were 90+. The principal was extremely suppor/ve and encouraging, but there was an unequipped science lab and no computers (he first used a microscope at university). The principal did not allow extra-mural ac/vi/es so that students could concentrate on academic work.

Con Conver ersion

• n t

trilog

• gy:

y: a agen ency a cy and s sch chool

• ol

te teachers

OLWETHU: In his village, most boys aspired to be policemen or soldiers. But when Olwethu was 14, his mother got a smartphone. He played with it and found the internet by chance and became ‘obsessed’ with famous people’s lives, discovering that ‘educa/on is just the base of everything’. His passion for science led him to ques/on an uncle who was a staff nurse about health- related science (pathogens and blood types) and found that his uncle didn’t

• know. He decided that because he is ‘very curious’ he must go to university,

although his family discouraged him because they thought it would be too

• difficult. So, he told his teachers and his principal gave him extra more

difficult mathema/cs to prepare him, Olwethu liked and was top at mathema/cs and sciences, for which he got dis/nc/ons in Matric.

Poverty at university

LWAZI: Un/l he turned 18, living costs were covered by money that paid out from his father’s life insurance policy (father was a teacher; mother was unemployed). However, the money has since run out. When he got to the point of applying for university, two of Lwazi’s teachers offered to help him raise funds to enter university; family members also pitched in. The money raised was enough to cover registra/on fees. He had no idea where tui/on fees would come from, his guardian said he should just focus on what he can do: ‘just study’.

Evidence of Epistemi mic Access: Desire to engage with knowledge and determi minaHon to suc succeed eed

DUMASANI: love of learning from an early age as part of ‘how things were’ in his family: “my brothers were in school already so that made me to be curious. When they were speaking between themselves, I’d get curious and ask quesCons, when we used to do homework in one place with our neighbours, that’s when we tried to engage, write things, try to rap here and there. So, the love for learning ….” “my start wasn’t like the best of them all but I’m not one to give up with my start, my finish should be the strongest one yet, to come. […] And when I’m rolling, everybody knows, when I’m rolling I’m like a tumbling rock from a mountain, I gain momentum as I go.”

Evidence of Epistemi mic Access: Discipline- specifi fic engageme ment

DUMASANI “we basically analyse everything, when we’re saying this is language in power, we’re displaying it as this and that if somebody is shouCng at you, doing this and that, that’s how they use language to show power in poliCcs, referencing to everything that we know or have seen in our daily lives, so it wasn’t more technical but it was more of an analysis and an analogy of an idea and how that idea represents a certain enCty that we find in our classes.”